生物化学技术

CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) activity is currently believed to be one of the key immunologic mechanisms responsible for the prevention or attenuation of HIV-1 infection. The induction of CD8+ T cell activation may also result in the production of soluble or non-classical lytic factors th ...

The 72 kDa heat shock protein (HSP72) is a molecular chaperone that binds native protein with low affinity. These interactions can alter function of the substrate, a property known as HSP-mediated activity control. In the present work, BIAcore instrumentation was used to monitor binding rea ...

Assembly of DNA into chromatin allows for the formation of a barrier that protects naked DNA from protein and chemical agents geared to degrade or metabolize DNA. Chromatin assembly occurs whenever a length of DNA becomes exposed to the cellular elements, whether during DNA synthesis or repai ...

Here we describe a detailed methodology to study the function of genes whose products function during mitosis by dsRNA-mediated interference (RNAi) in cultured cells ofDrosophila melanogaster. This procedure is particularly useful for the analysis of genes for which genetic muta ...

We have developed two whole genome-scanning techniques to aid in the discovery of polymorphisms as well as horizontally acquired genes in prokaryotic organisms.First, two-dimensional bacterial genomic display (2DBGD) was developed using restriction enzyme fragmentation ...

Here we describe in more depth the previously published application of the fluorescent probe 4,5-diaminofluorescein (DAF-2) in order to reliably measure low levels of nitric oxide (NO) as released from human endothelial cells invitro. The used approach is based on the following consider ...

Shotgun phage display cloning involves construction of libraries from randomly fragmented bacterial chromosomal DNA, cloned genes, or eukaryotic cDNAs, into a phagemid vector. The library obtained consists of phages expressing polypeptides corresponding to all genes encod ...

Microsatellite markers are simple sequence repeats within the mammalian genome that can be used for identifying disease loci, mapping genes of interest as well as studying segregation patterns related to meiotic nondisjunction. Different strains of mice have variable CA repeat len ...

In proteins, some processes require conformational changes involving structural domain diffusion. Among these processes are protein folding, unfolding and enzyme catalysis. During catalysis some enzymes undergo large conformational changes as they progress through the c ...

Herein we review the various methods currently in use for determining the expression of chemokines by CNS cells in vitro. Chemokine detection assays are used in conjuction with one another to provide a comprehensive, biologically relevant assessment of the chemokines which is necessary ...

During a complex macromolecular reaction multiple changes in molecular conformation and interactions with ligands may occur. X-ray crystallography may provide only a limited set of snapshots of these changes. Solution methods can augment such structural information to provide a ...

Tetrahydromethanopterin (H4MPT) is a tetrahydrofolate analog originally discovered in methanogenic archaea, but later found in other archaea and bacteria. The extent to which H4MPT occurs among living organisms is unknown. The key enzyme which distinguishes the biosynthetic p ...

Satellite DNA sequences are known to be highly variable and to have been subjected to concerted evolution that homogenizes member sequences within species. We have analyzed the mode of evolution of satellite DNA sequences in four fishes from the genusDiplodus by calculating the nucleot ...

Excitable cells in many endocrine and neuronal systems display rhythms with periodicities on the order of many minutes. To observe firing patterns that represent the output of these rhythms requires a recording technique that can monitor electrophysiological activity for several ...

Type I interferon (IFN) gene therapy modulates the immune response leading to inflammatory heart disease following cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in a murine model of post-viral myocarditis. Efficacy of different immunisation protocols for the IFN constructs was influenced by ...

Disarmed versions of the cytotoxin ricin can deliver fused peptides into target cells leading to MHC class I-restricted antigen presentation . The ricin delivery vector must contain an attenuated catalytic domain to prevent target cell death, and the fused peptide epitope must remain in ...

Alcoholism is one of the major causes of non-ischemic heart damage. The myopathic state of the heart due to alcohol consumption, namely alcoholic cardiomyopathy, is manifested by cardiac hypertrophy, compromised ventricular contractility and cardiac output. Several mechanisms ...

Real-time PCR methodology can successfully quantitate microchimeric cell populations at a concentration of 100 microchimeric cells/100,000 host cells; however, it has not been successful in quantitating DNA from trace numbers of microchimeric white blood cells which we report ...

Due to the involvement of calcium as a main second messenger in the plant signaling pathway, increasing interest has been focused on the calcium signatures supposed to be involved in the patterning of the specific response associated to a given stimulus. In order to follow these signatures we des ...

There is accumulating evidence that membrane-bound receptors interact with many intracellular proteins. Multiprotein complexes associated with ionotropic receptors have been extensively characterized, but the identification of proteins interacting with G protein ...